


The Tightrope Walker

by Anyathethief



Series: Crossed lives [4]
Category: Athos - Fandom, Porthos - Fandom, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: 17th Century, Circus, F/M, Paris (City), Spain, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-09-20 17:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9502598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyathethief/pseuds/Anyathethief
Summary: Jad has been brought up in a circus. One night he meets the person who'll change his life. But everything was supposed to be like that. This new character will come full circle, finally solving all the remaining doubts from the previous stories. Meanwhile, Porthos has to deal with the decision he'd made and a situation more serious than he thought.





	1. The blue balloon

"Sahanna the tiger! Come and see Sahanna the tiger!"

"Cotton candy! Blue, pink, white!"

"Are you brave enough to ride the spooky roller coaster?"

"Balloons! Balloons of all colours! Here you are, sweetie."

When the man bent over to take the coin from the five year old blonde girl that was stretching her arm out, on her tiptoes, she started to run in place, impatient, eager to grab the balloon's string.

"The blue one, please!" she exclaimed, overexcited. Her big, fair eyes shone when the man in the funny costume gave it to her. "Thank you!" and she ran away, in her light blue dress, now paired with the flying balloon that she dragged. The man smiled tenderly, thinking that she really was a little spitfire, before going back to his job.

"Balloons! Balloons of all colours!"

"Muuuuum!" running like a train, the little girl was making her way through the crowd to reach the candy cotton stall nearby, where her mum and sister were waiting for her. Or, at least, so she thought.

Among all those people, super tall in her eyes and dark of hair, she couldn't see her mum and sister's blond heads. "Mum…?" she whimpered in a chocked voice, looking around, lost.

She winced and she was about to cry; the more she looked around, the more she felt small and suffocated by all those people that seemed to not even notice her. The lines of lights decorating the tents were blinding, confusing; the music drew out the crowd's chattering all around her.

She hadn't even the time to think that maybe she should have tied the balloon's string to her wrist, that someone ran into her abruptly, making her fall on the ground with her open palm on the bare earth.

She raised her eyes to see the blue balloon fading in the dark sky and flying away forever.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I apologize, I'm sorry!" a kid, the same one that made her fall, was helping her to get back up, but she was already crying, her mouth open, screaming her at the top of her lungs against the sky. First, she'd lost her mum, then the balloon, and also when she fell she'd broken her tights: her knee was bleeding through the hole left by the tear.

"No, don't cry, come on! Hey… Little girl, don't cry!"

She couldn't clearly see through her tears the person who was trying to calm her down, clumsily, but she could glimpse black curls and dark skin.

"Come on, I'll bring you to your mum, come!" he stretched out his hand and she took it, trusting him completely, although she kept howling desperately.

"I… don't know… where she iiiiiis!" she sobbed, squeezing the edge of her dress, not worried at all about having her face completely soaked in tears and a dripping nose.

"Okay, okay, if you stop crying I'll buy you another balloon, all right?"

This seemed to work a little. She rubbed her eyes with the free hand, without leaving the kid's; in this way she was able to see him more clearly. He seemed to have her cousins' age, she thought, so he must have been around ten years old… His brown eyes looked reassuring to her, and in that moment she forgot all the warnings that her mum gave her about not talking with strangers: but what else could she do?

I'll take you to my mum, okay? She'll know what to do to find yours." he said confidently, too much for a boy of his age, but he seemed to know what to do.

She followed him through the crowd, without knowing where they were going. Then, suddenly, a little tent in front of them looked familiar. Yes, the day before, her mother wanted to get in there, but her father had told her that it was rubbish; she didn't understand what they were talking about, she just wanted a candy apple, and in the end they'd gone away.

"Come on, let's go!" the boy encouraged her, dragging her inside. "Mum!" she called, once they got in. The little girl looked around curious and a bit frightened. There was a funny smell there, and she couldn't tell whether it was good or bad. There were many crystals hanging, and wind chimes that in her eyes were just some rounded toys with colourful feathers. A beautiful woman with a long veil and big green eyes stood up from the pillows where she was sitting on, to go meeting her son at the entrance. "Jad, where have you been?" she asked, in a worried tone.

"She's got lost. She can't find her mum." he explained, while the little girl was now trying to hide behind his legs, shyly.

The woman started to stare. When she moved her head, the little stone hanging on her forehead, dangled along with her, and the child was enchanted by it. The woman looked at her for long seconds, then her full lips bowed in a kind smile. She stretched her hand out towards the little girl: her long fingernails painted in red, scared her in the beginning, but then she let her stroke her hair. Jad's mother touched her temple with her thumb, gently moving her hair, and then she smiled even more widely. "By the other cotton candy stall." she sentenced in the end.

"What?" her son asked.

"Her mum and her sister are waiting by the other cotton candy stall, the one next to the popcorn stand."

The little girl looked at her amazed, her mouth open. How did she…? Who'd told her…? But Jad didn't look surprised at all. He grabbed her hand again. "Let's go. I'll buy you another balloon later." and dragged her out again.

The little girl looked behind over and over again, hoping to see that strange lady that must have been a magician or a witch (she was hoping she was a nice one), and when she appeared at the threshold, she did the strangest thing: a bow! A bow, to her, like the one that Alice made to the Queen of Hearts in the cartoon she loved. She opened her mouth and eyes wide, while trying to keep up with Jad's pace; then a familiar voice made her forget about everything that had just happened to her.

"Iris! Iris, where have you been?!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Porthos appeared to be more thoughtful than ever. For several months now it seemed that a constant thought had obsessed him to the point to turn his eyes red for the lack of sleep and having the first white stripes appear on his head. He could have easily hide them in his bushy, dark hair, if only he'd realised that.

The Captain puffed in a way that sounded like a muffled laughter, one of those that Porthos hadn't heard since when D'Artagnan had died. He saw him shaking his head and glancing at him with complacency.

He put the mug of beer down on the table, abruptly.

"What?" Porthos asked, curtly.

Athos hesitated, as if he thought that he couldn't handle what he was going to say, then he mumbled: "We're old."

The corner of Porthos' mouth raised in a grimace. "Speak for yourself." he burst. Neither had the energy to mess around with the other as they used to do. Most of their conversation was based on provocation that rarely the other sensed like jokes, and in the end they would often find themselves drinking in silence, everyone rapt in their thoughts.

Athos hadn't never been the same after Aramis and D'Artagnan's deaths, but he'd become even more weird after he'd come back from England. Porthos almost beat the truth out of him, until the Captain had shouted at him that she'd died. They'd never talked about it any more, not even by mistake.

The most heartbreaking thing was that he knew the truth. Milady hadn't died. He'd seen her, he'd sent her away and everyday since then he'd been wondering if he'd made the right choice. His friend didn't seem to be better than when he thought she was alive, but at the same time Porthos could recall their encounters as excruciating for Athos: he wouldn't have allowed this to happen again, he hated seeing him that way. And he needed a Captain, the whole Garrison needed one.

Porthos was convinced that it was only a matter of time: sooner or later he would have come round, maybe he would have met another woman and forgot about the one that had torn his heart for all those years.

He looked at him drinking the last sip of wine from the bottle. A musician was playing the violin in a corner of the tavern and Athos was keeping time tapping with his fingers on the counter, following a melody that Porthos didn't know. Gradually, the wrinkles rippled the Captain's face in a nervous grimace, as his tapping on the counter became sharper, until he stood up, sentencing: "I'm off." and walked towards the door, as he couldn't stand to be there one more minute.

"Damned freak..." Porthos hissed, finishing the content of his mug off in a sip.

When a drizzling spring rain shook him in a lasting chill, he heard the musician in the distance closing his song and saying: "And this was Marini's Foscarina!" proudly, thanking the clapping audience.

Athos was now a blurred silhouette far away in the rain's thick fog; he had no intention of getting to him. Sometimes he liked to feel sorry for himself in his melancholy. From an alley came out a shabby guy leaning on a crutch, with a tinkling tin in his hand.

"A coin for an old soldier?" he sputtered towards Porthos.

"Narquois..." he muttered. He knew well what was at the bottom of the street from where the narquois, the fake crippled soldier, had come. But he'd promised himself to not do it again.

He shouldn't. For his own good, he shouldn't torture himself like that.

He fought against his own mind for a few moments, looking at the narquois slowly crossing the street to get to him. Porthos looked at him full of doubts, then he moved his eyes from the alley to Athos' figure vanishing in the rain.

"Hell!" he burst. He walked loping towards the dark alley, but he couldn't make more than five steps. When he passed by the narquois, this one pulled his hand in front of him, handing out a letter and, with a completely rejuvenated voice, he said: "my lady sends her regards to the Musketeers."


	2. The prophecy

"Not later than seven, Iris! Without discussion."

"But dad…! Come on, it's only twice a year, please!"

"Without discussion!"

Iris sulked. Tears filled her eyes. "Ple-" she was about to say, when her mother intervened.

"I'll come to collect you at seven." she sentenced, for Iris' disappointment. "Then we can stay a little longer, together." she added, though. Victor shook his head resigned, but almost amused, while Raquel shrugged smiling towards her daughter, who was now jumping around, joyful.

"Thank you! Thank you, thank you! I'll get an A in the maths test, I swear!" her last words faded into the crows, while she walked away towards the big, colourful tents.

"I'm still not sure about that lady and her son, you know that." Victor said patiently to his wife. He was a mild guy, never raised his voice, but he couldn't keep his thought for himself.

"Stop it. They're adorable." Raquel shushed him. "A little weird, but nice." she admitted, looking at Iris disappearing in the crowd. Her husband was still staring into space, while she was ready to go back to the car. "She's thirteen, Victor. When she was her age, Celia was already dating Rafael. Let her alone." she cut it short.

"Jaaaaad, Jad, Jad! Ooops!" went Iris, breaking into the card reading tent like a tornado and realising too late that her friend's mother was with a client. "I'm sorry… Really sorry..." she whispered, feeling guilty. The woman, with a card still in mid-air, smiled and pointed towards the back of the tent. "I'll go… I'm going, see you later..." and rushed outside again. She went round the tent and there she found her friend, six months older than last time she'd seen him.

"Ten… Eleven..." he was counting, his eyes shut. Iris saw a kid withdrawing quickly his leg to hide better behind a tree. Since when he was not older than eight himself, his job had always been to look after the little ones, the children of the other circus' employees.

She smiled, amused by the scene, and got closer. "Twelve… Thirteen..." she stood in front of him, scanning his body from bottom to top. "Fourteen… Fifteen.." she thought he was getting more upstanding, she didn't remember his arms were so well-built… "Sixteen… Seventeen..." and there was something different in the shape of his face as well. "Eighteen..." Wait, he was even much taller! Oh no, he was going to make fun of her even more than the usual… "Nineteen..." When she got closer, she noticed the shadow of a growing beard, dotting his cheeks. "Twenty! I'm coming!" and as soon as Jad took off his hands from his eyes, Iris shouted: "BUH!" making him jump back with a wince.

"Iris!" he exclaimed, smiling. One thing hadn't changed since he was a child: his reassuring look. She threw her arms around his neck. "Hi!"

Still a little shocked, he returned the hug. Then he gently pushed her away to look at her, and in the end he sentenced: "Yeah, you got even shorter." and laughed out loudly, while she showed him a grimace.

"So, what would that be, then? I bet you won't be able to grow a decent beard before you turn twenty!" and stuck her tongue out. She was still pretty childish, even though her body had begun to develop early.

She got the desired effect, anyway, because he went touching his face, worried. "Hey! Don't be cheeky, respect the adults."

"I can't, if adults make stupider choices than mine!" and she tried to pull out of his shirt's pocket the package of cigarettes. He blocked her hand playfully, on his heart, and for a moment she thought she'd seen his bronze skin turning red. But then he chuckled. "Mind your own business, kid." letting her hand free. "Let's go. Hey, guys! Keivan is counting now!" he shouted to the children still hidden. While they were walking away they heard Keivan coming out of his hiding place, complaining widely.

"I can stay until nine!" she proudly declared.

"Then you'll make it on time to see the show."

"Will you give me a ride on your motorbike, first?"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"No way!" Porthos burst out, holding the letter in his shaking hand. A hooded Milady was smiling enigmatic, as the Musketeer's angst was part of her plan. "And I thought I told you to stay out of Paris." he added, confused.

She kept smiling in silence. The wrinkles on her face were more pronounced than the last time he'd seen her, but Porthos could understand why his friend was so madly in love with her; she was still very beautiful and her ambiguous charm gave him contrasting feelings.

Milady moved a step towards him, without changing her serene face.

"You told me to stay away from Athos." she specify. "Do it for Josèphine." she just had to say those three words to let a veil of terror drop on Porthos' eyes, who stepped back.

"How do you know that? Wha-" he blabbed, confused, before he burst out again, shouting. "What have you done to her?!" and stepping forward again, threatening her from the top of his height.

Milady looked around, fearing that someone could've heard them; but the alley was as empty and dark as before. "Pull yourself together. I have no interest in killing her." she spat those words like a bitter pill, staring at him with a judging grimace. "What I meant is that I can help her."

Porthos shook his head, unbelieving. It couldn't be true. And if it was, it was a shitty situation, because she couldn't ask him to choose between Jo and his best friend. He kept shaking his head, trembling, incredulous. "You can't. I don't believe you."

"I can try. I know a doctor."

Porthos puffed an ironic chuckle. With a hand rubbed his eyes, and he raised the other to prevent her from saying anything else. "I've got debits with half of the doctors in the city, and all they could do was a blood-letting that almost killed her."

"I promise you, this one doesn't use conventional methods. Porthos… Maybe it's not too late. Think about it." Milady turned her back to him and was about to walk away, but he hadn't finished yet.

"Why?" he asked, exasperated. She stopped, but didn't turn to look at him. "Why do you want to do this to him? Go back to be Louis' lover… Do you really need this?"

Porthos' question remained unanswered, but as far as he knew her, the answer to any question regarding her behaviour could have been summarised in "because I'm a giant bitch."

He leaned on the wall. He felt emptied of any emotion, but still full of doubts. It was about human lives, and he had the chance to decide which of the two to destroy.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Have you lost someone, recently?" Tabatha was slowly revealing the cards on the table, but her green eyes were fixed on the woman in front of her. She was sitting nervous, holding her purse on her lap, staring anxiously the pictures on the table. She nodded, unsure, then she swallowed.

"My mum, yes." she replied in a raspy voice.

"Relax, Raquel." the veiled woman reassured her. "You'll see her again. Life doesn't end with death."

Raquel nodded again. It was a sentence people told her many times, but she'd never truly believedi it. Now all the cards were on the table and Tabatha looked at them without a particular concern. Then she went back staring at her eyes.

Her look was so intense that Raquel felt her privacy invaded, like she was reading her mind. She couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds.

"Maybe I should go and check on Iris." she blabbed, trying to get up from the pillows.

"Stay." said Tabatha, in a deep voice that almost seemed someone else's. "There's something you need to know. " she added, seriously, keeping searching her soul with those tiger eyes shaded by a dark make up. Raquel petrified and went back sitting in front of her, moving her fearful glance from the cards to Jad's mother.

"Someone from your past needs you." Tabatha's look narrowed, as if she was trying to see a blurred shadow in Raquel's eyes. "Someone you feared and respected."

"Who?" the Spanish woman asked, curious.

"You'll know when the time will come. When she'll call you, you'll have to leave for a journey."

Raquel tensed up again.

"But… Can't I help her right now? This person…?"

"No. Listen to me: it's important you go there when she'll call you." Tabatha said, convincingly.

Raquel hesitated: then, either because of the hypnotism of those green eyes, or to put an end to that embarrassing show, she nodded. "Of course. I'll do it, of course."

"Mum!" Iris broke into the tent, enthusiastically. "Oh, ma', you should have seen him, you had to be there, it was amazing!"

A much more contained Jad appeared, smiling. He went next to his mother, who stood up, took his hands and kissed him on his forehead.

"I'm sorry, Jad, maybe next time." Raquel apologised.

"I don't know how he does that! He was thirty feet in the hair – thirty feet! Could you imagine that?" Iris was definitely overexcited, jumping up and down, then doing an impression of a tightrope walker, balancing.

"Do you think the rope could break if you eat too much?" she asked to her friend, naively.

"For sure, if you try to walk on it, after all those popcorns..." he made fun of her.

"You idiot! That's not true, ma', I didn't have so much..."

Raquel looked at her resigned.

"Only two whole cartons!" Jad provoked her again, chuckling.

"You stupid! Come here!" she exploded, racing to chase him out of the tent.

The two women, left alone, laughed together. Raquel shook her head.

"She just talks about him all the time..." she confessed, thinking it was a nice thing to say; but when she turned towards Tabatha, she noticed her face had changed: a visible concern marked it.

"What? Did- Did I say someth-" Raquel stammered, embarrassed.

The fortune teller shook her head, calm again. "Iris is a lovely girl. But Jad could never be the love of her life."

Raquel didn't know what to say. She'd never thought she could have been, but that sentence, out of the blue, had puzzled her.

"Is it for a religious matter?" was the only reason she could think of. But Tabatha shook her head again.

"Iris will find the love she's lost. There's no place for Jad in her scheme."

Raquel was now clearly embarrassed. She didn't know any more what they were talking about. She looked out of the tent to avoid Tabatha's look.

Jad was tying a blue balloon to Iris' wrist. She widely smiled and forced the boy to bend so to hug him.


	3. Josèphine

"Iris, open the door!"

"In a minute!"

"Quick!"

"Okay! Okay."

That August's heat was unbearable. The curtains were closed, not only to shade the interior of the house, but also for them to be free to walk around in their underwear. Iris quickly wore one of her father's t-shirts, which barely covered her backside, but hid those young woman's shapes that had been sculpted in the last years, replacing her teenager slight, flat body. Yet, she'd remained innocent in the face; she still looked under age, even though she had been attending university for a couple of years.

It could be only the mail lady, she thought. But the bell rang again when she was about to open the door. She hesitated for a second, thoughtful, then she opened the door.

Jad gave her a smile that overwhelmed and petrified her at the same time.

"Jad!" she exclaimed, breathless. She raised on tiptoes to hug him.

He laughed and rubbed her back, but he suddenly stopped when he realised he was unintentionally pulling up her t-shirt, revealing her white pants she wore underneath. He didn't say anything, but blushed; she didn't notice.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were in Valencia!" Iris landed on the flat of her feet and noticed that her friend was holding a blue balloon in his right hand. She wasn't that surprised, but she smiled at him adoringly, grabbing it.

"That's why we only have six hours before I have to go back for my show." he said, looking at the watch. Iris' jaw dropped.

"You're crazy!" she said, however, without wasting time. She climbed up the stairs towards her room to go and get dressed. "You're totally crazy!" she shouted from the distance, while he waited on the threshold. "And also twenty-five. I haven't forgotten!"

Jad giggled and shook his head. In less than three minutes, Iris was back: she was wearing a blue dress that made her look again like the little girl lost at the circus, simple white sandals on her feet and a handbag on her shoulder. She didn't brush her hair, nor wore make-up, but she didn't need to: she was pretty in her simplicity. "Happy birthday, old man." she smiled, mischievously, throwing at him a wrapped packet, while walking past.

Jad was stuck for a moment, but then he smiled and followed her along the driveway.

"Even when I want to surprise you, it's always you surprising me in the end!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Porthos' confidence about speaking with Athos faded away as soon as he'd reached the Court of Miracles, and more precisely, Josèphine.

His heart broke in thousands of pieces seeing the little girl trying to smile at him, but being torn apart by the pain that her wounds provoked. Her face was completely covered in pustules like scales of a reptile, but bleeding and dark.

"Hey, princess." Porthos strived to smile, getting closer to her bed, but he knew well that he had a pitiful look on his face: he was struggling to holding back his tears.

"Hi." she replied with a feeble voice, due to the blisters that must have grown in her throat.

Every time he walked into that door, he hoped to see her getting better, as it had been for her mum and dad, who, in the end, had completely healed. But she seemed to get worse instead, day by day.

He took her hand: he wasn't scared of being infected.

"How do you feel today?" he asked her with a forced smile.

"Bad… I'm hot." the child replied.

Porthos put his hand on her forehead and it seemed like if he was touching a boiling pot.

Someone had appeared on the threshold. Porthos turned towards the door and glanced resignedly Flea's silhouette leaning on the door frame: she had the same bloodshot eyes of whom hadn't slept for days, like him, and the marks of the smallpox still evident on her skin.

"She's burning." Porthos said to her. But, as if he couldn't hold her look for more than a few seconds, he lowered his eyes and went back looking at the six-year-old sputtering for the pain. He held her hand, and pursed his lips to not cry.

"Try and have some rest, Jo. I think I've found another doctor." he announced, hopeful. "A good one. When you get better, I promise I'll take you to see the horses at the Garrison!" he faked his naivest enthusiasm, but his voice was trembling.

"Porthos..." Flea called him in a tired, reproaching tone.

The little girl nodded slowly and he smiled again. He put her hand on the bed and went out of the room, preceded by an exhausted and resigned Flea.

"No more doctors." she declared firmly. "Nothing seems to work. The last blood-letting only weakened her… I have neither money nor strength to raise some, I..."

"Look, listen. Trust me, okay? You can't let her go in this way, there must be a cure for that." he said surely, as if Milady's words had inculcated in his mind so deeply to make him believe they were true.

"Even if there was, we don't have time. She hasn't eaten any solid food in days, now… I can't see her like that..." she grabbed her head and broke down. Porthos saw her crying for the first time in a long time and spontaneously hugged her.

"I'll find a way. I'll find a way." he kept repeating, until her desperate squeaking calmed a little.

"Flea!" a dark, tall man, very similar to Porthos for his size and skin colour, suddenly entered the room. "What's wrong, love?" he asked, worried. And without hesitation, she moved from Porthos' arms to his, keeping sobbing.

"Porthos." he greeted, nodding, indifferent but not impolite.

"Yohan." Porthos simply said, without moving a muscle, except for his jaw when he imperceptibly ground his teeth looking at the scene.

"I'm here, Flea… Everything will be fine, we'll find a way." said Yohan to the girl in his arms, repeating the same words that Porthos was whispering to her shortly before, as if he'd overheard them. "We'll find a way."

Porthos' nostrils dangerously dilated; he felt the anger growing, and before exploding in an outburst, he stormed out the house.

Fuck Athos. He should had understood a long time ago that Milady wasn't anything but a bitch. Maybe he was doing him a favour, opening his eyes in that way. He didn't care if he'd seen her as the King's lover again; in that moment, he wouldn't have cared even if the King himself had died.

That little girl represented Flea's rational part, the one that still loved him; at the same time, he wanted to show her he was still that man, that would've done everything to get her back.

Blinded by the anger and the pain, the only thing he wanted in the world was to save Josèphine, and he would've done it at the cost of selling his soul to the devil, or to a bitch.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Do you believe in ghosts, Jad?"

Jad raised his head from the lawn with his eyes wide opened, to look Iris in an astounded face. But she couldn't see him: she was laying peacefully on his dusty Seat Ibiza's bonnet, looking at the cloudy sky above them.

"Really? Are we talking about this here, now, in a desert wood? I don't know if you saw that creepy house we drove by, but I've been keeping an eye on the path for one hour, waiting for a guy with a chainsaw to pop out."

Iris' slight, graceful body was shaken by laughter. When she raised her right knee, holding her stomach while giggling, Jad glimpsed the white pants once more, and once more he blushed. But this time he didn't stop looking.

"I mean, your mum must've seen a lot… I was wondering if..."

"Wait… What?" he interrupted her, looking away from her firm, pale thighs, to focus on the conversation. "My mum doesn't see ghosts." he said, as if it was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard.

"I thought she did. She always talks about life after death, she always knows when you lose someone… And I have to say she guesses a lot of things: how else does she do, then? Ghosts tell her, right?" she reasoned, as if her speech made sense.

"It's an innate power. It's not about… those things." he cut it short.

"Listen to yourself… 'those things'… You're even afraid of saying it!" and she started making fun of him again, chuckling.

Jad shook his head smiling. His eyes fell upon the blue balloon inside the car, tied to the handle of the door, then again he glanced at her. With her eyes closed she wallowed in the warmth of the sun faded by the clouds.

"Hey, you haven't opened my present yet!" she remembered, suddenly, jumping up like a spring on the bonnet. "Come on, take it! Go!"

"I've got it!" he exclaimed, annoyed by her insistence, pulling it out of his pocket. He unwrapped it patiently, while she craned her neck to see, as if she didn't know what he'd found inside. Jad opened the blue box with a jeweller's logo on it, and his face relaxed in a pleasantly surprised face, when he saw a rubber necklace. The two ends were joined by a thin, silvered stick that formed a rope on which a tightrope walker's silhouette of the same material was standing.

"So?! Cool, isn't it?" she asked, excited, with a large smile.

He smiled back. His face was burning. "It's amazing. Thank you."

"Let me put it on for you!" she said then, wanting him to get closer.

When Jad was in front of her, he prayed that moment never ended.

Everything was too perfect, she was perfect, the sun, her dress, her hands touching his nape, tinkering with the necklace's hook, her hair's scent, him standing between her opened legs, couldn't help but lowering his look on her neckline, on her tempting lips, on her focused eyes.

It was just like when he walked on the rope, there was only a thin thread keeping him alive. But this time he had another chance, beside keeping walking along his path. And he decided to threw himself down.

"Done." she said. And in a moment he was on her.

His hungry lips devoured her, his fingers plunged into her pale flesh, leaving red marks on it, her dress simply slid down, but this time he didn't have time to stop and look at her white pants; he was too focused in eating her breasts, licking every inch of her salted skin, while she sank her fingernails in his back, feebly moaning. He entered slowly, but immediately started to push harder and harder, he wanted to tore her soul apart, he ran his fingers through her hair and then closed them in fists, pulling those blonde locks dispersing between his dark knuckles, along with cries of pleasure and pain. He was pushing her against the bonnet of the car, without thinking he could've hurt her.

For every time she'd made fun of him, for every time he'd made fun of her, for when he'd saved her, for when he'd protected her, loved in secret, spied, admired, adored, desired…

He pulled her hair when he reached the peak of the pleasure, forcing her to look right at his face: he wanted her to read the love in his eyes.

Then he made her lay on the bonnet. He kissed her kindlier, caressed her forehead, moving her hair. He went down kissing her neck, her breasts, around her navel. Every time his lips touched Iris' skin, he noticed she trembled and moaned; he went farther down, until he made her howl and scream. She bowed her back and hit the car repeatedly, gasping for air and shouting for the uncontrollable pleasure.

He lifted her legs and put them on his shoulders. His hands thudded on the bonnet and now he was face to face with her; her face was completely pervaded with an enormous, satisfied smile. Both of them winced when the balloon exploded without notice in the car, and then they laughed together, amused by the irony of that moment.

Jad bent on her to kiss her tenderly. Then he started again.


	4. Never trust women

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, was Jad, the tightrope walker! A big round of applause!"

Jad bowed one last time, enjoying the roaring from the audience before spotlight was moved on someone else.

"Are you ready for some magic?! Welcome the great THIIIIBAUD!"

Jad smiled. He'd arrived late to the show, they had to bring forward the juggling number to give him time to get ready, he'd have got told off by the director, but he had nothing in mind but her; while he was walking on the rope, he could see her on the other side, waiting for him, in her blue dress pulled down to her waist, uncovering her breast, her legs opened, tempting, and that mischievous little grin on her face that had changed forever the way he imagined her.

He'd never get off that picture from his mind, he couldn't believe it'd happened for real, and that it could been happening many times to follow. Even before he opened the caravan's door, though, his heart skipped: a bad feeling. He didn't mind.

"Mum..." he started, ready to explain. He was sure that she'd understand, she'd always been open-minded in that way, and she'd always loved Iris.

"You were late." her cold voice froze him. She knew already.

"It was for a good cause." he tried to justify, to get to the point. She was standing, as if she'd just stopped from walking back and forth, impatiently.

"I know what you're doing, Jad." she went on. He noticed she was trying to keep her voice in a flat tone, but he heard a feeble flicker in his name. Tabatha shook her head.

"It's not a good idea." she said, slightly sweetening her face.

"What…?" Jad was astonished. It was the last thing he'd expected to hear.

Tabatha swallowed, clearly nervous. She went closer, her big, green eyes were wet and insecure. She put a hand on his cheek, reading his soul in his eyes.

"You'd suffer too much, Jad. I'm only trying to protect you." she whispered. There was something in her words that made him hesitate: if only she wasn't his mother, he'd have left already. But Jad knew what that woman could do, and above all, he knew she'd never denied anything in his whole life.

"You can't do this to me. What do you know?" he had a chill. She'd looked in his future, in Iris': she knew.

Her hand slid down on his bite-marked neck, and ran along the necklace, until it reached the jewel. She turned it around with a faint smile, then she ripped it off.

"What…?!" he burst, nervous and surprised. "Why did you do that?"

"Tell me: have I ever got a prediction wrong?" she asked, calm but heartbroken.

Jad breathed deeply a few times, trying to keep control and hating the fact that she was a woman and his mother: he'd have hit her already, otherwise.

"Are you really that presumptuous… to think that everything you see will surely become true? Have you ever thought that it might be us building our own future? Have you ever thought that we could change it? That not everything is written?!" he raised his voice as the rage grew in him, venting it out with large, dramatic gestures and clenching his fists.

Tabatha held back a laugh, but her eyes were filled with tears. "I thought about this, very much." she confessed. "It doesn't matter, sweetie." she went back caressing his cheek. "It's not important that you understand it now. Soon everything will be clearer."

Jad seemed to calm down, seeing his mother so upset, but still resigned. "Can't you just tell me what you've seen?" he asked, more gently.

She shook her head, peacefully. He nodded, getting nervous again. He snatched his necklace from her hands, and she didn't resist. He stood, staring at her, short of air, heart in his throat, mad, hurt. Then, unexpectedly, he threw the necklace on the floor and stormed out the caravan quickly; he didn't want to see anybody.

Deep down, he knew she was always right, but he couldn't accept it, not that time.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Porthos had started keeping an eye on that man, the Marquis of Cinq-Mars, who called himself "Monsieur le Grand". Probably because of his enormous ego, in the Musketeer's opinion: only the presence of that man – and he was always present – irritated him at the point that the King himself had noticed his restlessness. When the Marquis would teased him about the colour of his skin, or his size, all the repulsion he felt for that guy would betrayed from his face, clearly holding in the hatred. Louis would always try to ease tensions, patting his back and telling the Marquis, laughing, to "not poke the bear", distracting him with an invitation to a walk.

He'd never seen the King walking that much. He loved to spend all his time with the Marquis and he'd always started leaving Gisela behind, who spent her days taking care of the Dauphin. Porthos would feel negative vibes coming from her every time she greeted the Marquis in a glacial, detached tone.

But apparently, Monsieur le Grand didn't care about other people's opinion. He didn't have attentions for anyone but the King and he was putting so much effort in trying to please him every time, that both Athos and Porthos couldn't understand how Louis couldn't realise how fake were his smiles and his compliments.

Athos swore that once he heard the King saying that "you can't trust women, my dear Marquis. Anne broke my heart and I'm not sure I can completely rely on someone else."

He confessed to Porthos that he had a chill hearing that. He had been married to Gisela for a few years now and until a few months ago it seemed like he had eyes only for his beloved wife and the Dauphin. Then a fresh-faced boy, little more than twenty, had come out of nowhere, and the King had become a child again: everyone was running after him, trying to make him sign documents he didn't care much about, he often put meetings off and reduced public appearances. He giggled like a little boy to every childish joke of the Marquis, and everyday he'd ask to be escorted with him in the middle of his gardens, in that little flower garden to which he was the only one to have access, where then he'd punctually dismissed the guard. After three or four hours another guard was in charge to escort them back to the Palace.

Porthos couldn't believe he was about to do it for real; to listen to a woman he hated from the deep of his heart, betraying the King's orders, who, in the end, had quite a point: "you can't trust women". That was the only thing the Musketeer could think of when, instead of walking away as he was commanded, lurked behind a hedge to spy through its leaves.

He felt guilty, it wasn't right, it was like he was spying on a naked woman bathing in the lake. He kept repeating he was doing that for Josèphine. And for the King, of course, his King. He was spying on him, true, but it was for his own safety.

Milady had found out the conspiracy thanks to "trusted informers", and seemed pretty sure of the fact that Cinq-Mars would have implemented his plan very soon. She didn't give him much information and many were the unanswered questions. Why would he kill the King, if he was his favourite? And moreover, why not doing it earlier? He had had plenty of chances.

Louis had lowered the guard: in that moment he wasn't even armed with a weapon, whereas Cinq-Mars was carrying a gun and a sword. Porthos heard them cling in a metalling sound, when they clashed together, in the moment the Marquis took off his belt and put it on the ground, next to where he sit. The King did the same, while they chatted about silly things, in Porthos' eyes, and clearly they were, compared to the much more important business that Louis wasn't attending to sit on the grass with a boy.

The Musketeer looked away, bored, and sat behind the hedge with his ears pricked.

"Your wife seems good… Are you thinking about having another child?"

"… I'd sentenced the cook to the guillotine..."

"… A very interesting composition, I'm sure you'd like it..."

"… Where has the brooding, light-eyed guy gone? The one who was escorting us last week?"

Porthos raised his eyebrows. Of all the gossip he had to listen to in those endless minutes, maybe the most interesting part had finally arrived.

"Athos?"

"Yeah. Even if the blackie looks the part..."

Porthos made a grimace. Now he didn't know if he wanted to kill him about the racist insult or… Was that a compliment?

"If I were you, I'd leave him alone. You've never seen him in a fight."

Well said, Your Majesty.

"Have you had thoughts about him?"

What? How did he dare to…? Still, the King didn't react in the way Porthos had thought. In fact, he burst into laughter like a little girl.

"You'll never change!"

"Isn't it what you want from me? To never change?"

"To always be honest, yes, but your audacity always surprise me."

"Let's see if I can beat myself into surprising you, then."

Porthos raised his eyebrows even more, in an extremely astonished face. The King didn't reply, but instead he heard a guttural, unexpected cry, like the one he'd heard many times coming from the throat of someone who's just been stabbed.

"YOUR MAJES-" he jumped up immediately, about to intervene, when he realised the huge mistake that would have put him in a lot of trouble.

In that moment, looking at Louis and Cinq-Mars half naked, clinging in acts he'd never wanted to see, other than shame he couldn't feel anything but anger against that massive bitch who'd screwed him again.

Also, the nickname "Monsieur le Grand" that the Marquis had given himself, was finally explained.

Never trust women.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The adrenaline was still running in his body when he reached, for the second time that day, Iris' door. It was the middle of the night, he'd been in the car for more than nine hours in total that day, without counting all the sex and the show he'd just performed at the circus.

For a few minutes he'd been staring at the door, but, as the adrenaline was gradually leaving him, all his determination went fading. His mother was never wrong. But neither was his instinct. Not once it'd betrayed him while walking on the rope, otherwise now he wouldn't be there like a fool, his phone in his hand and a cold fish face.

Had he really driven all the way to there, just to come back? It was a paralysing doubt, again balancing on the rope. He was staring at the little screen of his phone, repeatedly reading Iris' name and wondering what to actually tell her.

For the whole journey he'd imagined her, running towards him, still in her blue dress, and him saying something like: "let's run away together", or "I love you". But in that moment, all of that just seemed unrealistic.

The utopia left him along with his energy, but he was shaken all of a sudden by the high-peaked ringtone; his phone was ringing and buzzing, while "Mum" flashed on the screen.

He shushed it with a flick of his thumb, rejecting the phone call, annoyed. He immediately felt guilty. He thought he could sent her a text, only to tell her he was okay and that he'd came home soon, but when he opened the text box, he heard a voice calling him in a whisper.

"Jad?"

He raised his eyes to see Iris leaning out of the window, looking at him in a mixture of surprise and happiness. All his doubts vanished. He smiled mischievously.

She disappeared for a minute and then came back, exactly how he'd imagined that. He started thinking that maybe the hypothetical dialogue he'd built in his head wasn't so unrealistic as he thought. A dopey smile appeared on his face, but she managed to erase it with two words, shortly after.

"Will you take me?"

Initially he thought that was a proposal for him, but when he saw her standing on the windowsill, his eyes popped out in astonishment.

"Wait! Wait, I don't know if..."

"I know you will." she smiled, and jumped.

She was luckily right. Once again, Jad managed to balance, grabbing her firmly before she hit the ground. Of course all the years he'd spent training as a trapeze artist had helped. The phone fell from his hand, the battery popped out, along with the back cover.

"You are crazy! Crazy!" he burst in a low voice, putting her on her feet and picking up the pieces of his phone, however not turning it on.

"Come on, hurry up!" she grabbed his hand and dragged him, still incredulous, along the driveway, towards his car parked on the street. She started kissing him even before she got in. She pulled him close, she let his body pushing hers against the pleasantly fresh door. Jad submerged again in the memories of that afternoon; it was just right he'd imagined it.

He pushed her in the car, on the back seat, then he followed her placing his body on her and closing the car door.

In that moment his mother's word echoed distant and vague, like a blurred dream; he'd closed them in a corner of his mind. He didn't want to hear them, he wanted to forget everything and just stay like that, licking her breast and making her feel his passion, pushing against her tiny body, that was already twitching in pleasure, with chuckles and whimpers.

"I'll take you…" he whispered in a deep, animal voice, burying his fingers in her thighs, while she'd scratched his back and wrapped him with he


	5. The fall

Jad woke up slowly, warmed up by the early sunlight on his face. He didn't open his eyes, but woke his muscles, moving gently. He ached all over; he was sitting in a really uncomfortable position, in a corner of the car, and Iris had fallen asleep on him, as if he was her pillow.

He felt her moving herself, moaning softly. He felt her hand touching his face and sliding down on his chest and smiled. He didn't care if every single part of his body was aching because of the uncomfortable night and all the acrobatics he did the previous day. And not only the ones on the rope.

He blindly looked for her head and buried his fingers in her hair, kissing it, tasting her conditioner's scent.

Suddenly, she jumped up, waking him completely and even making him wince.

"Oh no! Oh, shit!" she exclaimed, looking for her clothes all around the car. She was only wearing her pants and in that moment Jad couldn't worry too much about whatever she was making that scene about.

"Don't swear." he smiled slyly, grabbing her waist and pulling her closer to kiss her breast. "I should punish you… Again..."

"Idiot!" she burst, slapping him with the dress she was holding, but Jad noticed a note of pleasure in her squeak. "We have to move, my parents are about to go to work! Go, go, turn on the car!" she pushed him. At that point, he started worrying for real.

"What?! But… I haven't even..." and he started looking for his clothes as well.

"It doesn't matter, move the car! Go!"

Jad moved clumsily on the driver's seat, working his way in that car too small for his height, and he started it. He took a secondary road and pulled over again, while Iris was getting dressed. He turned off the car.

"Listen..." he started to say, looking at her in the rear-view mirror.

"I'm sorry. They would've killed me." she interrupted him, moving on the front seat herself, to get closer to him. He moved back his seat and started getting dressed as well.

"Well, when do we start again?" Iris joked. Or not. She had again that mischievous look on her face.

Jad chuckled, putting his t-shirt on. "I should call my mum, she doesn't know I'm here, she was calling me yesterday..." he looked around and found his phone, still turned off, abandoned on the car mat under Iris' feet. He turned it on.

"Yesterday it was..." he started again, but again she interrupted him.

"Have you lost the necklace I've given you?" she asked suddenly, noticing it was missing.

But Jad already had other thoughts. His phone started ringing continuously, notifying him with dozens of unread messages. All of them said more or less the same thing, or reported missed calls. The boy's face shrunk in an astonished look.

"Jad, what's happening?" she called him.

But he couldn't hear her. He was far away with his head.

The phone started ringing again, while the name of Thibaud, the circus' magician, was flashing on the screen.

"Jad, answer to me, what's happening?" Iris insisted, shaking his arm.

But he kept ignoring her. His look was fixed on the buzzing phone, ringing restless like her.

"Jad!" she called him again, unanswered. He pressed the green button on the keyboard instead and slowly brought the phone to his ear, trembling.

"Hello?"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Porthos had been keeping an eye on that cell for a couple of days; he could glimpse only a corner of it and, only pressing his face against the bars of his own cell, from time to time he could see a shadow, a foot, a sleeve. He could hear the steps of its occupants walking back and forth, restless; it must have been someone quite short, thin and graceful. The Musketeer wondered what he'd done for being arrested and put in that part of the Conciergerie.

All the other cells were empty; it hadn't been a random choice to cage him where he couldn't see the host of the only other occupied cell.

One week in isolation: it wasn't that bad. The King had been merciful, he'd considered all the years he'd served him trustfully, and maybe he'd also bought the excuse that Porthos had sold him. And it wasn't even a complete lie: he'd really thought that someone was attempting on his life. He'd only left out the fact that he thought it was Cinq-Mars himself to conspire against him…

He was furious with himself to have made such a stupid mistake; he was deeply ashamed of what he'd seen, and at the same time he hated that woman even more. She perfectly knew, she knew and she didn't tell him, she'd left him finding it out by himself in the worst way. And now he had to stay there for all that time, doing nothing, while that creepy worm attempted on his King's life, and Josèphine…

He couldn't even think about her, he felt his heart drowning and his head clamped in a vice. But the more he suffered, the more he forced himself to think about her. This was his real punishment. His pain couldn't never been compared to Josèphine's, and this made him feel worse. He laid down. At least his cell wasn't that bad: there was something similar to a bed and a bench.

Every day they would bring him fruit and gave him a new candle, but, still, complete silence reigned. No soldier would speak, the other prisoner wouldn't speak and him… well, he didn't really want to open his mouth. He would have been shushed anyway. Only the noise of the soldier's steps kept him company, and sometimes the other prisoner's.

He heard the soldier leaving his position and climb up the stairs. Three times a day, for a few seconds – one minute maximum – he was free of the jailers' glance.

He sighed and relaxed his muscles for a second. But then another noise made him stand back to attention. Something had hit his cell's bars. He suddenly stood up and looked curiously that weird ball wrapped in a wrinkled piece of paper. Another guard was already coming downstairs. He quickly picked it up and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he looked away and laid down again.

What the hell was that? For sure it was coming from the other cell. The sheet seemed empty, but what was in it, then? He was dying to find it out; finally he had something less depressing to keep his mind busy.

He waited until the guard walked in front of his cell, and when he could see his back, he unwrapped the ball, which turned out to be… an orange. Nothing but an orange. What could it mean? He analysed the sheet, front and back, but it was totally plain.

All right. Either the second prisoner was a creep, or something was missing there. He hid everything under the blankets, before the guard came back, then he tried to look towards the other cell, but couldn't even see the shadow of its guest.

He sat and started thinking. If he just wanted to give him an orange, why wrap it in a piece of paper? Unless, the paper… Wasn't actually empty. Of course!

Always keeping an eye on the guard, he took the candle and started rubbing the sheet on the flame, quickly, for it to not burn: the paper started getting darker in some spots. Letters were appearing. He had to interrupt this operation a couple of times, when the guard would turn around and walked back towards his cell, but in the end it seemed he'd decrypted the hidden message.

A message written with orange juice, simple but brilliant. He was proud of himself to have been able to crack the code, but he didn't have time to brag about it: as soon as he read what was written on it, a gelid veil deleted his satisfied face. A few words in a trembling handwriting were enough to shake his spine with chills.

"Cinq-Mars wants to blame Athos for the King's attempted murder."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The flashing lights of the police cars and the ambulances projected into Jad's eyes so deeply that they hypnotised him and made him almost crash into a parked car. He left his without even closing it and stayed for an endless moment with his mouth opened, his chest swollen with pain and his eyes fixed on the colourful tents that suddenly appeared to him like an ugly, grey picture, in which only the yellow police tape would stand out.

He didn't even realised he'd went over it when he found himself into the surrounded perimeter. He didn't noticed the policeman who was ordering him to stay back. The only thing he could see was the Ferris wheel, motionless and majestic dominating the tents and the stalls.

Even though the sun shining in front of him was trying to prevent him from understanding what had happened, Jad didn't need much time to find among the cables the missing one. He followed with his eyes a straight line to the ground, but he couldn't see anything but a bunch of wreckage, partially covered from the crowd gathered around it.

"Thibaud!" he exclaimed, spotting the wizard among the people. He ran towards him, but as soon as the man turned around and recognised him, his afflicted face changed in something else that Jad couldn't read.

"No" he shouted, drawing the other members of the circus' staff's attention, who seeing him seemed to start panicking themselves. "Jad, stay away form here!" and Thibaud was on him. A thin, French man trying with all his energies to push him away from the accident site.

"Wha- What's happening?" Jad was astonished. They'd told him that nobody was on the Ferris wheel in that moment, why they didn't want him to see?

"Jad, don't get closer!" the tamer intervened, and along with another couple of people he tried to push him away from that place. His brain was tremendously slow in putting all the pieces together, probably because he had himself an inexplicable fear of reaching the conclusion. But in that moment it became clearer: the presence of an ambulance, Thibaud voice tone at the phone, his face when he'd seen him, and why four men were on him now, pushing him with all their strength towards a big tent.

"Mum..." he whispered in a low voice. His eyes filled with tears instantly. "No..." he moaned like a wounded kitten, looking at his colleagues, one by one. "No, it's not true… No… Let me see, I want to..." but he didn't fight much against them. A side of him didn't really want to see: he let them drag him away, almost like a dead weight.

He didn't pass out, but fell in a state of shock. When he slightly came round, he found himself on a bench, looking at people he didn't know all around; they had orange uniforms, but his brain was so frozen that he couldn't even identify them as the medical team.

"Don't worry." someone took his hand, a woman's touch, delicate and reassuring.

Jad's attention, though, had been caught by the vivid colours of the uniforms and his blurred sight mixed them all together in a confused vortex: at least he was reacting and they'd stopped flashing the torch in his eyes.

"Can you hear me?" a voice was trying to bring him back to reality, but he didn't want to. Reality was cruel, cold.

There wasn't any more that beautiful girl waiting for him at the other side of the rope, with her breast out and her legs open. Now the only thing he could see was the darkness beneath his feet, swallowing the rope to make him lose balance: Iris' bare feet became tentacles ready to whip him, her mischievous smile a diabolical grimace, her soft, blonde hair a bristly tangle. Her yellow and red eyes penetrated him, terrifying; her long, pointed tongue licked her purple lips as she was about to taste a glorious meal.

"Can you hear me?" someone was saying, in the distance, above him. In the moment he distracted, the monster hit him with a tentacle. He fell into the shadows, but he managed to hold onto the rope and stayed there, dangling, with the monster staring at him, sneering, and the darkness trying to swallow him. He'd never fallen before.

"Can you hear me?" this time he clearly recognised that voice.

"Mum?" Jad was incredulous and his right hand lost grip, leaving him hanged only by his left hand. He heard a gasp from a non existing audience, somewhere below.

"Mum..." he muttered, while the rescuer went back pointing the torch in his eyes.

"Jad, I'm sorry. But I won't let you fall."

Suddenly an invisible force grabbed his free hand and pulled him back on the rope. Jad saw a light red like a fire, warm and inviting. The monster seemed scared of it.

"Go." his mother's voice was closer now, as it was coming from the inside of that trembling light. The terrifying monster jumped into the darkness, horrified, and the light guided him holding his hand, until he was safe on the platform.

The crowd applauded, the spotlight was pointed on him, blinding him.

At that point, Jad came round for real with a sudden wince. He turned around to see who was holding his hand, but he realised nobody was sitting next to him.

He stared at all those worried people around him, trying to determine his condition and decide whether to bring him to the hospital or not. But he stood up as nothing had happened, and with an unrealistic confidence, he left the tent under the astonished witness' eyes.

He entered his mother's tent. All her stuff was there, her scent still in the air, some uncovered cards on the table, a little carved wooden box and a letter next to it.

He knew it. He didn't want to believe it, but deep inside he'd known it since the moment he'd seen the police tape; that couldn't have been an accident. Still, he wasn't able to explain the reason why he felt it in the depth of his guts, an uncomfortable, annoying feeling, that made him feel guilty, and not just because he'd rejected what it was her last call, and not even because he hadn't reassured her with a text the night before, no. It was something deeper, darker.

Jad read the letter without hesitation: he had to know everything, now. He had all his life to cry and despair, but only a few moments to try to catch his mother's feeling in those few lines. His eyes moved slowly, trying to pick any shade in the accurate choice of words, every little ink stain that made him understand Tabatha's state of mind while she was writing that letter.

When he'd finished, he put the letter back on the table and opened the little wooden box. With wet eyes, he looked around. It seemed to him as if he'd shrank, like a deflated balloon. All the power he'd felt running through his veins in those two days, the joy, the excitement, the satisfaction, all lost. There was just him, with that letter and that box, without Iris and without his mother.

He went back looking at the content of the wooden box. He took a deep breath, then he picked up the tightrope walker-shaped pendant.

And this time he actually fell.


	6. Homecoming

They'd been five, long years. Five years without his mother, five years without Iris, without friends, without walking on the rope.

But now Jad knew that the moment had come: it was time to go back to the circus and put in its place that annoying tale in which he kept to stumble in. For all that time he'd been living with the little money he'd saved and that he'd inherited from his mother, and the generosity of the people he voluntarily helped. Sometimes they wouldn't even pay him, sometimes he would decline the offers himself.

He found incredible how differently the people would react to unpleasant or good news. But everything would always came back to the same, damned point: no matter what he did, he was never able to change people's fate.

If he would say to parents that their child had a cancer that needed to be treated immediately, they wouldn't believe him and tell him to get lost, mistaking him for a penniless beggar looking for troubles; if he would try to avoid accidents, they would happen anyway, in a way or another. The only satisfaction he could get from this was that sometimes people believed him and, even if they couldn't change their fate, they would thank him with a warm meal, money or a shelter for the night.

He'd travelled in seven different countries, learnt new languages, wore out countless pair of shoes and almost starved to death, but not a day had gone by that he hadn't thought about her. Everything he'd experienced had led him to that moment: Jad passed under the flashing arch that was the entrance to the circus. The Ferris wheel still stood out high and majestic, and for a minute he seemed to notice a missing cable, but when he winked again, he realised they were all there.

It had been for a miracle that the director had managed to save the circus from being accused of negligence and negligent homicide. And now here it was again. There was no gap between the hanging cables of the wheel, but there was a huge one in his heart, and another one among the tents. The little tent in which his mother used to read the cards had disappeared, but they'd promised him it wouldn't never been replaced: with great relief now he could see they'd fulfilled the commitment. Knowing that his mother was remembered made him feel a little less guilty.

He pulled his jumper's hood on his head. He didn't want to talk to anyone he stumbled upon. He managed to avoid the look of a couple of people he knew, but dodged a second too late a trapeze artist's, who seemed to recognise him. She stared surprised, but didn't stop him. Jad heard her fingers tapping on the phone's keyboard, even if it wouldn't never be possible from that distance. "He's here." even though she hadn't opened her mouth, the girl's voice whispered to his ear, drowning out the other people's chatting around him. He turned around to look at her, and she gave him back an even more shocked glance. Yes, he knew what she'd written in the text, and even to whom. Although, he still had some time.

He walked among the tents and reached the director's trailer. He knocked on the door, determined.

"Jad?" said a surprised voice behind his back. He faintly smiled to his former boss.

"Mr. Director." he greeted him with a nod. "You're looking great."

The man hadn't changed much from how he remembered; he still had the same bright eyes and that large belly that made him look like a cartoon character.

"My boy, where have you been?" he squeezed him in a crushing hug, that Jad struggled to return, with an amused smile. "Come, you have so many things to tell me. And so do I."

In a minute he found himself sitting at a small table, drinking hot tea, in silence. He had so many things to tell, but none he wanted to share for real. He waited for Gustav to talk first, and his first words were, indeed, a tough break.

"You could've told us, you know? That one day a girl would've burst in here and we'd have to break her heart for you." his voice was severe, but allow space for reasons from his side. The only thing was, he didn't have one.

"I'm so sorry you had to do that… Until a few months ago, I thought she had completely forgotten me." after all, he'd abandoned her on the street that day, after they'd spent the night together, and he'd never called her back. He hadn't been to his mother funeral himself, but he'd imagined Iris being there with her parents.

"So she managed to contact you?" Gustav asked, curious.

"Actually she didn't."

The director glanced at him suspiciously, biting a biscuit, and Jad filled his mouth with a sip of tea, letting him thinking about that vague answer.

"My boy, we all know what you've been through. But no one understood your choice to leave and push any help away. What your mother had left you..." and he pointed his finger towards his neck, from which the tightrope walker's necklace was dangling. "… is not a burden you can easily carry by yourself."

Jad went back with his mind to those first days, when he couldn't even close his eyes, tortured by headaches, by confused memories spinning in his head with no logic, by the pain for his loss. He could recall how he'd left, because he couldn't bear staying among people, he couldn't control the flow of information streaming through his brain.

"It's much better now. I can cope with it, somehow." he reassured, attempting another faint smile that looked more like a grimace. "Sometimes it comes handy, too." he added, lowering his voice.

"I have to tell you, when we found you on the floor, trembling like a leaf, we thought you'd taken something to get it over with." Gustav confessed, biting another biscuit.

Jad had to squeeze his eyes for a moment. The memories of that day had provoked him a zap to his temple and bombed him for a millisecond with all those confused pictures that he'd managed to organise, eventually. "I thought I couldn't survive that myself." he said, pretending nothing had happened and rubbing his temple in a natural gesture.

"Well, did you come back to stay, then?" Jad noticed that hopeful note in Gustav's voice, even if he was trying to not betray himself.

"I fear not. I still have a couple of things to do."

The director stared at him in disappointment. "I hope that one of these will be that girl. It's been a couple of years now she hasn't come to ask after you, but I think she deserves an answer."

"She'll have it." Jad said. He looked over the window, at the colourful balloons reflecting the feeble sunset.

Gustav scoffed the last biscuit and looked through the window as well, at the Ferris wheel.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Porthos couldn't help but staring between the bars of his cell, in that corner from which, in rare occasions, he'd seen someone moving across the other cell. Who had sent him that message? He was impatiently waiting that the guard stepped away to try and contact the other prisoner, but the hours seemed endless. He had to pass the time in a more useful way, he couldn't just waste it while both Athos and the King were risking their lives.

He started to write. But he immediately realised that the letter would have been checked and thrown away if he'd revealed the details of a conspiracy. He thought over and over again and in the end he came to a solution: Athos would understood. The fact itself that he was sending him a letter from prison should have made him suspicious. He tried to write it in the cheesiest way so to make obvious that it was hiding something else, beside the useless information he was giving. He had to make different attempts, because the first words of each line revealed the true message, but in the end he made it.

Now he just had to hope that the letter arrived in the Captain's hands. While he was folding it, he heard the guard's steps climbing up the stairs and he immediately made a dash into the corner, pushing his face against the bars.

"Hey!" the Musketeer whispered. "Show yourself!"

It was a total surprise for him to glimpse in the corner of the other cell a lock of long, red hair. Liz's big eyes stood out on her pasty, pale face, but stared at him full of pride.

Porthos' jaw dropped. Everything made sense now. There it was the other reason why Milady wanted to reveal the conspiracy: she'd never had any intention of going back being the King's lover, she just wanted to save Athos and Liz.

"How have you ended here?" he asked. In that moment he heard the guard's steps walking down the stairs again.

"Cinq-Mars." she managed to whisper in reply. Then she stood staring at him silently, with a little frown on her face, for a few more seconds before disappearing again in her cell when the guard got to his position.

Porthos went back sitting on his bunk, his mind started elaborating so many pieces of information that he didn't know from which one he had to start feeling guilty from. Liz, he knew that girl. She'd come to him, months ago, she'd accused him of being a liar: she was so self-confident and sure of the fact that Athos was still thinking about Milady that for a moment he'd thought about telling her the truth.

Instead, he'd told her to check with her own eyes. He'd pushed her into following Athos in one of his innocent visits to Constance, in her little house outside Paris, where she'd been exiled after everything that had happened. Liz had no idea of who that woman was, but seeing the smile on the Captain's face had been enough to persuade her into thinking that she must have been his lover.

Porthos still couldn't believe that he'd managed, for that one and only time in his life, to be smarter than the subtlety in person, but in some way, even thanks to that naive redhead, he'd made it. He hadn't thought much about that afterwards. He was sure that the things would have followed their natural course, that Athos would have forgotten of her, eventually, and vice versa. But it hadn't been like that at all.

If he was still convinced that it had been for Athos' own good, on the other hand he'd started questioning himself, while the guilt was devouring him. If Athos had ever found out, he would've killed him. He couldn't tell him, not yet.

Meanwhile, he had to think about saving his life. Who knows, maybe he could've got out of there faster. He'd never forgotten that there was another life at risk in that tangled story, an innocent life.

"Josèphine..." he muttered in a sort of blessing, holding in his hands the letter that could've changed many people's fates.


	7. The ride

She was furious. She'd have screamed and stomped her feet if it wasn't for the fact that she had to pretend that nothing was going on. Manuel didn't know anything about that story, only some information here and there, like that that was the circus she used to go to when she was a child and that a lady she knew had died in the Ferris wheel accident, crushed by a cable that had fallen on her head.

She couldn't tell him, she couldn't confess him that up to a few years before she'd met him, she was totally obsessed by another man, and not just any man. He was Jad, he was Porthos, he'd been his best friend and possibly he still could have been. But that couldn't happen, she wouldn't allow them to meet: she'd have ended in a shitty position, there wasn't any other way to describe the discomfort she would have felt if those two had ever met.

She had let it seem a coincidence. She'd deviated Manuel on the way home with the excuse that she wanted to see if the circus had arrived in town, but she perfectly knew: Inga had fulfilled her task and alerted her immediately when she saw Jad's face in the crowd.

Going back in that place had become too painful for her. After years of pointless visits, questions with no answer and investigations that had led her to nothing, she'd given up. He was gone. He'd left her without a word, and nobody knew where he was.

She was boiling with anger. She was staring at every face with an upset frown, while walking quickly past the cotton candy stall.

"So, it's here where you used to come as a child?" Manuel asked, trying to keep up.

"Yes!" she replied, wearing her best smile, as if she didn't want to kick anyone who slowed her down in that moment.

"Hey." he called her suddenly, grabbing her hand. She stopped, looked in his eyes for a second, then she got distracted again. "Are you all right?"

"Mh." she nodded, forcing a faint smile. "Yes, sorry, I guess that… when I thing about what happened to Tabatha..." she dropped that justification with a convincing, heartbroken face. She knew that he'd have fallen for it and she felt terribly sorry for lying. She couldn't even end the discussion, because her attention was drawn by something at Manuel's back. A clear sign.

"Maybe we should g-" he was about to say, but she immediately interrupted him.

"No!" Iris exclaimed, with maybe too much enthusiasm. "I think that… I should face this thing, eventually. Let's go to the wheel." and started walking again, dragging him with her.

As soon as she turned her back to him, her face darkened. What the hell did that dork of Jad have in mind?

They walked through two line of blue balloons, tied around the fences pickets in a trail that clearly wanted to lead her towards the Ferris wheel.

"Iris, are you sure that..."

"I need to do this." she explained, determined, keeping walking. A blue balloon was tied on the top of the tickets kiosk and another one onto the cable that whirling had just stopped in front of it. "Of course..." she growled, ironic, snapping her tongue. Everything only made her more nervous: what did he expected? That she'd have ran to him with open arms only because he'd placed a few balloons here and there? Her hands were itching: she couldn't wait to put her hands on him, but not in the way she'd have done five, maybe even three years before.

"Two tickets." she asked to the cashier.

"I'm sorry, miss. There's only one place left in the cable." the man replied, clearly not a good liar, as he was barely keeping himself from giggling. Iris glanced at the dark-windowed cable.

"But it has just stopped… How come tha-" Manuel was about to reply, but was interrupted again.

"It doesn't matter. Maybe I'm just meant to do it by myself." she fake-smiled again to him and smacked a kiss on his lips. "Later."

"But, Iris… are you..." he babbled, surprised.

"Later!" she repeated firmly, taking the ticket and giving it to the man in front of the cable. When she opened the door, she took a deep breath, but as soon as she entered, all the air she was keeping in, came out in a broken sob.

A slap echoed in the cable, then another. She went on him kicking and punching, and for how short and skinny she was, they hurt. They were hurting his heart, wounding his soul like sharp lashes, but he was suffering quietly, taking every hit with tears in his eyes.

"You disgusting… Pig..." she was growling between a sob and another, her face already soaked in tears and red. She exploded in a frustrated scream, squatting on the floor, her hands in her hair. She looked completely crazy, but in Jad's eyes that was a perfectly understandable reaction. He'd have done worse, perhaps.

"Iris..." he started to say. It seemed like his voice was hurting her as shards of glass had just exploded on her face.

"Shut up!" she shouted.

And so Jad did. He let her cry for a while, until then he saw her standing up in front of him. She was tiny compared to him, but he found himself shaking, scared like a child in front of his mother's reproach.

"Five years… Five years, Jad. You fucked me like the whore down the street..." Jad's eyes popped out: if there was something he didn't expect was exactly that choice of words. "… you left me on the roadside telling me you'd called me back… And you disappeared for five fucking years! Your mum died, and… Oh, not only you didn't think about telling me… You didn't even come to her funeral! Your mother's! And now? What the fuck to you want from me now, Jad? What the hell are all this… balloons, and..."

She couldn't finish her outburst. As soon as she stopped to catch breath, he wrapped her with his strong arms in a warm hug. She was cold, still, but on the other hand, she wasn't trying to get away from that.

"I'm sorry. But there's something bigger than the two of us on the plate." he whispered to her ear. It was then that she pushed him away.

"The two of us?" she replied, astonished. "There's no more 'two of us', Jad. I..."

"Manuel. Ben. Aramis. I know." he cut it short. Her eyes and mouth dropped open. "I only wish the best for you two. And I hope that one day you could forgive me for what I've done, but now you need to listen to me." he said, convinced, just barely touching his tightrope walker necklace.

"How do you…? And is that…?" she babbled, confused.

"Iris." he called her resolute. "D'Artagnan and Constance." those two words were enough to make her almost forget that he'd been a jerk.

"Where are they?" she asked immediately, touching the birthmark on her temple as a reflex reaction.

"They're in danger. But… I can't deal with it, it must be you." he gave her a piece of paper, on which there was an address written. She read it carefully.

"But it's in Italy! How do you think I can get to Italy without saying anything to Manuel?"

"Tell Manuel whatever you want. Is he your soul mate or not? He'd stay with you even if you'd tell him you're a criminal."

Iris laughed nervously. But she knew he was right: sooner or later she'd have had to face this topic with him, and she knew it would have gone right. It was just extremely embarrassing to tell him everything.

"You must be there in a week. As soon as you get there, call the police and let's hope for the best."

Iris looked at the address again, thoughtful. Then she shook her head. "Wait a minute, what do you have to do so important that you can't go yourself?"

Jad sighed. "I have to go to London… Iris, I know that it doesn't make sense to you, but… My mum knew." he concluded, heartbroken.

"Knew what?" she asked in a low voice.

"She knew about you and Manuel." he said. She shook her head, denying it. "She knew… about her own death." he felt the tears making his eyes itching, but he needed to tell her everything.

Iris stepped back, shocked. "It can't be..."

"She wanted to keep us apart for our own good. She knew that when Manuel arrived, it'd have been hard for me… and for you… She knew she would die that day, but she couldn't do anything to change things but writing to me her last words and leaving me..."

Jad touched again the necklace he was wearing and smiled.

"He's left you… That's why you know all these things… I didn't… I had no idea..." she mumbled, pretty upset, sitting.

"Iris. I… I've always loved you." he confessed in one breath, ripping off that plaster in one go. She didn't looked at his face. Her eyes were lost somewhere else.

"I loved you too." her lips murmured, whilst every other muscle of her body was petrified. Jad felt an ancient passion waking up in him, a fire burning in his chest; but when it was about to burn every nerve in his brain, she added: "but now no more. Tabatha was right. It was meant to be like this… And maybe you did the best thing for both of us, leaving. And I… Oh, I'm such an idiot!" she jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tight and wetting his jumper with tears.

With an incredible effort, Jad cooled down that animal passion once for all. And finally, he could put his mind at rest. He'd gone exactly how his mother had said, and there was no way to change it, but there were other things that he could do, that he had to do, to be able to redeem himself completely.

The wheel had almost concluded its race, now. Jad kissed her on her head.

"Say hi to Aramis, if you ever tell him the truth. Tell him I'm sorry. And if one day you'll be ready, you'll find me here. My number is on the back of the note."

The cable slightly shook when it stopped in front of the entrance. Iris dried up her tears, nodded and smiled. She couldn't believe that a few minutes before, in that same spot, she was attacking him with punches and words, and now… She didn't want to let him go.

"I'm sure we'll see each other very soon."

He nodded. "Save Tommaso and Beatrice." he said, holding her hands and wrapping them around the note with the address.

"See you soon." she said, staring at his eyes, as if she wanted to stick the picture of him in her memory before he'd ran away again.

He theatrically bowed. "Your Majesty."

"Idiot." Iris giggled, opening the cable's door.

"Congratulations, anyway." he added, in a playful tone.

"For wha-?" she was about to ask, when Manuel's voice called her.

"Iris!" she turned around and saw him shaking his hand, happily. She realised that from that angle he might have been able to see the inside of the cable, and quickly closed the door. She waved back with a smile.

Strangely, as soon as she'd put her feet on the ground, she started feeling weird: her head was spinning and her stomach seemed to shrink. It had probably been because of the height… Unless…

Iris paled. She looked at Manuel. She turned around to look at the cable, but it had already left. She put a hand on her belly and her eyes opened wide.

"Bastard..." she hissed, amused.


	8. Narquois

There wasn't much that Porthos could do from that cell, but every time the guard would walk away, he would whisper a question to the other prisoner. Soon, though, he realised that it was too risky to keep talking in that way of the conspiracy against the King. Everyone could have heard them. So he started asking another kind of questions.

"How are you?"

"How did you end up here?"

"When will you get out?"

She wouldn't answer, but he could see her in her corner, hanging on the bars and staring at him with her big green eyes, thoughtful and frowned.

At the nth question with no answer, Porthos sighed.

"All right, it doesn't matter. After all, you've done enough for me already..." he smiled, melancholic. He kept wondering if Milady knew what he had to pass through to have investigated about Cinq-Mars, and if at this point she'd sent already a doctor to Josèphine.

The hours would pass, cruelly flat and silent. The anxiety chewed Porthos' stomach, incapable of swallowing anything nor to sleep, while walking back and forth in his cell or laying and massaging his temples to have some relief from the headache caused by too many thoughts.

All of a sudden, he heard an unexpected clanging noise. The new guard had just arrived, but someone at the top of the stairs had opened the door again and was walking down the stairs.

The Musketeer jumped on his feet as soon as Athos appeared. One of his hands was covered in bandages stained with blood. He stared at Porthos for a long moment, before the soldier walked in their way, standing in front of the Captain. In the unwounded hand he was holding a document, which handed out to the soldier. Then he went back looking at Porthos. He had something reassuring, but he noticed a particular indecision in his nodding.

The soldier didn't say anything and opened Porthos' cell. So was it over? Was he free to go? He turned instinctively towards the other cell. What would have happened to her? But he couldn't say a word in front of Athos, or he would have had to explain everything. He saw for the last time a lock of red hair disappearing behind the bars, and he climbed up the stairs towards freedom.

"I'm glad to see you alive." he said, as soon as he was out of the Conciergerie.

"That was a narrow escape. That Cinq-Mars guy… Who could have seen that coming?" he shook his head, nervous, perhaps to not having sensed himself that something was wrong, before Porthos told him.

"He also had a well prepared plan… First he's tried to place on me the bottle of poison that the King should have drunk. A mild dose, not enough to kill him, but probably enough to leave him maimed. He thought that pretending to reveal the culprit, he would have been rewarded..."

"I bet that wasn't the sole reason. He wanted to discredit you. Why you, of all soldiers, otherwise? I bet Marcheaux is behind this all."

"We can't prove it for now. I don't know how on earth you've done..." he started, but Porthos interrupted him.

"It's not important now. I have a couple of urgent things to do. I hope that meanwhile no one else will attack your reputation." he made fun of him, only to mask his real concern.

Athos didn't look convinced, but he nodded, with his usual frown and his sad eyes. Porthos patted heavily on his shoulder and stepped away, his heart in his throat and a shadow in his eyes. He entered the narrow streets of the Court of Miracles as soon as he could, and he shortly found himself in front of Flea's house. He tried to calm down, in vain. He tried to control his heavy breathing, but he couldn't wait a minute more.

He knocked on the door. When it was opened, he realised that there was nobody on his eye level, so he lowered them to see a little, weak girl showing him a big smile.

"Josèphine!" he exclaimed, picking her up in his arms. "I knew it… I knew it..." and he spinned her around, hearing her amused laugh, that laugh that Porthos hadn't heard for a long time…

But in the end he was still in front of that closed door, his hand in mid-air, uncertain whether to knock on it or not.

If that was his expectation, perhaps he would have had to lower it. He wasn't living in a tale, he was in Paris. And in Paris children would die every day, without nobody paying too much attention.

He swallowed, but when he finally made up his mind and was about to knock, a voice behind his back stopped him.

"I want to save you from this."

He turned around to see Milady walking towards him.

"You…!" he shook his head, cursing her for being a woman: he'd wanted to strangle her in that moment, even though she'd saved Athos' life. "Don't you think you've forgotten to give me some information, when you told me that Cinq-Mars was an 'intimate' friend of the King?" he asked, resented.

"I've had a suspicion, I wasn't sure."

When he was about to reply, Porthos finally elaborated the first thing he'd heard her saying.

"What… What should you save me from?" he asked, not sure whether he wanted to hear her answer or not.

Milady sighed, looking at him with some kind of sympathy. He'd read in her eyes everything she had to say, but he wanted to hear it, he wanted to be completely sure, he wanted to hurt himself.

"The doctor came two days ago. But even if he'd come a week before, he couldn't have done anything for her. The smallpox was in a malignant form, different from the one that..." she stopped talking, when she realised that Porthos wasn't with her any more. He was wandering with his mind in a remote place, far away from there: a parallel reality, strangely rational, where he couldn't blame no one else but the destiny for that fatality.

He'd lost Josèphine, but it was a thought above the things that his mind could bear. He went back, in the prison, he locked himself up spying the red locks and obsessively walking in that underground hole. "The girl" he lisped, with a strange calm. "The girl in prison..."

"Liz." said Milady. "She'll be free soon." she added, confident.

"It was her. She told me that they wanted to frame Athos. She's saved him."

Milady grinned. "If she was smarter, Cinq-Mars wouldn't have caught her in first place. After all the time she's spent pretending to love him… If she'd been here, I wouldn't have needed your help."

Porthos looked at her confused and shocked. Was she blaming her after all she'd done for her? The Musketeer had no idea that she'd had to spend all those months as Cinq-Mars lover, before he caught her; if he'd known, he would have helped her for sure to get out of there.

"But I have to say I did a great job as a mentor." Milady added, light-heartedly. "Say hi to Athos and his new..." she sarcastically grinned. "...mistress." she concluded, spitting that last word as if it was poisoning air. And she left him in the middle of the street, with empty hands, empty arms, empty heart, but a mind full of thoughts.

He'd lost everyone. D'Artagnan, Aramis, Athos, Flea… Josèphine…

He'd lost everyone and he'd deserved it. He'd made coward's choices, he'd ran away from the woman he loved and he'd interfered in his friend's relationship. To protect him. No. That was only the excuse he would tell himself not to be disgusted from his own behaviour. He'd done it only for selfishness.

Athos was the only person left after D'Artagnan's death, and he didn't want to lose him too, he didn't want him to have a happy life with someone else, while he stayed and look, once again. And that was the result: he'd lost him anyway.

He remained alone with himself, helplessly staring at the beggars walking past him.

He found himself envying the narquois who would stop faking the lisp once he entered the Court's alleys: at least, he'd never had anything.

He couldn't understand what it felt like to have everything and lose it in a flash.


	9. Your fate in a whisper

Rocked by the train movement, Jad had finally managed to fall in a deep sleep, like he hadn't done in years. That talk with Irish had lifted a huge burden from his back, and finally he could breathe again, after five, long years. Even if not entirely. But he knew that soon he'd have fixed everything, and he'd have done it properly.

He'd arrived too late for Vanessa. She'd been dead for four years when he'd discovered, or better yet, inherited the memory of a soldier killed in cold blood by his mates outside the station of Vienna. She'd died without knowing what happened to him, with the doubt he'd forgotten her. That thought did nothing but torment Jad constantly, along with the memory of that letter delivered too late, Athos' punch, his uncontrolled despair after Milady's death. He could not forgive himself for that.

But at least he could still do something to put the puzzle together.

"The next station is King's Cross." the recorded voice on the train woke him up. He took his phone out to check the time, even though he knew he couldn't be late even if he'd tried to. He was part of that story, he'd seen himself clearly in that picture in his head: he'd been studying it for a long time, every time trying to catch more details. He wasn't trying to change destiny, he was part of it; even if he didn't want to, thing would have gone that direction anyway.

The only number in his contact list was Iris', but he wasn't sure she was still using that old number. He decided to try.

"I hope Italy is less cold than here." he typed, trying to stay as anonymous as possible. He knew she hadn't told Manuel yet; after all, she had something way more important to tell him.

He got off the train and found his way easily. He walked until, around a corner, a majestic cathedral appeared in front of him. Its greyish cupola faded in the sky of the same, dark colour, but the white little columns stood out like a row of candid, perfect teeth. Unexpectedly, his phone rang.

"Jad?" said the text. "We've found them. They are okay and grateful. Manuel knows everything now."

He had to stop for a moment, because another heavy burden he was carrying, disappeared, and for a second he thought he could fly away with the next freezing breeze that had blown in the square.

He sighed, then replied: "What are you going to call her?"

He put his phone away, raised his eyes towards the gigantic church that impressively stood over him, then he entered.

Noting he still had some time, he enjoyed strolling down the aisle, among the colours of the pavement, admiring the paintings on the ceiling, reading the names on the inscriptions and the funeral monuments. He climbed up an uncountable number of stairs and he found himself in a large, circular gallery. He sat there and waited.

He checked his phone, but he didn't find any text from Iris. Probably she was enjoying the company of her new-found friends, and he would regret not being there, if it wasn't for the fact that he knew exactly what he was doing and why.

"Excuse me..." he asked to a family of tourists with a child, talking to his father. "I'd love to have a picture of the view from up there." and he pointed to the stairs that went further up, leading to an outside terrace. "But I'm really scared of heights. Could you take it for me with my phone?" he had to refrain himself from laughing. A tightrope walker afraid of heights.

"Oh..." said the man, surprised. "The thing is that our son is scared too..."

"Come on, of course we can take it." his wife interrupted him. "Sebastian can wait here for us. After all, we came up this far, it'll be a shame not to get to the top!" and she took his phone from Jad's hands, switching the camera on.

"Thank you, Madam. I could keep an eye on your son, in exchange." he flashed his best fascinating smile: he knew he had a quite an effect on the mums.

"But are you sure that..." he heard her husband replying, while they walked away.

"He'll be fine. He's eleven!" she shut it down.

The kid looked at them walking away slightly frowned. They didn't even asked his opinion, indeed, before leaving him with a stranger. He sat on the bench.

"Hey… Sebastian." Jad tried to talk to him. "Do you want to see something super cool?" the kid didn't even reply. He was sitting and staring into space, with some kind of sadness in his eyes that didn't match his age. "Okay, I'll take it as a yes. Stay here, and when I give you a sign, listen carefully!" he explained with an enthusiasm that the kid didn't pick at all. "Yeah, okay, he hasn't change much, I have to say." Jad added, hastily. "Stay here and listen." and he walked away.

He walked the length of half a gallery, until he got to the side opposite Sebastian. He saw him having a slightly interested reaction. He waved to him and the kid, now curious, draw his ear closer to the wall. With his hand cupped on the side of his mouth, Jad spoke towards the wall beside him.

"This is the whispering gallery." he said, watching him opening his eyes wide in surprise, hearing his voice so close, even though they were so far. "Try and speak." Jad pushed him.

A little sceptical, Sebastian tried to imitate him, putting his hand on the wall and speaking into it. "Hello, can you hear me? Check, check..."

The tightrope walker giggled. "I can hear you loud and clear." he paused. "You're a smart boy, aren't you, Sebastian?" he didn't get any reply from the other side, but with the corner of his eye he saw him reacting surprised. "I bet you think that I'm crazy, but you have to listen to me carefully." He saw him turning around, looking serious and confused. He smiled at him, reassuringly. He mustn't forget he was only a child, but at the same time he couldn't forget what soul was living in his body.

"Look at the entrance of the gallery. A tall, blonde lady with a grey coat is about to enter, along with a ten year old girl with dark hair, green eyes, red coat." Jad didn't even turn around to check that it really happened, but from Sebastian paled face he assumed he nailed it. "Look at her, Sebastian. That will be your first and only love. It doesn't matter how many times you'll split and find each other again… your story will never be downhill. Years could pass between an encounter and the other, but when you'll be together… Trust me, kid, that is real love. Who thinks they've experienced it, have no idea of what your two souls can provoke when they meet." he said in one go. He knew he didn't have much time.

The kid opened his mouth to reply, but he interrupted him.

"Of course your first encounter can't be conventional. Look at her." and Sebastian turned around to look at the little girl leaning over the barrier to look at the church below. Even from the distance, Jad noticed in Sebastian's eyes, the same spark that used to enlighten his friend's every time he'd heard Milady's name, every time they'd meet, or even only when he just thought of her. The little girl tossed her hair haughtily and Sebastian seemed to come round.

"Are you sure?" he asked to the wall. "She seems a bit of a tease."

Jad laughed. Of course she was 'a tease'. She could afford that. She was the smartest woman he'd ever met.

"A hundred percent sure. Now look at the man with the black coat and the hat. He's nervous, his wife is lost somewhere in the church and he can't reach her. Typing on his phone, he won't realise to be about to bump into the girl, pushing her over the barrier. Go, you don't have much time!"

He saw him reacting quickly like only the Captain of the Musketeers could do. He looked at the man walking the opposite direction he started to walk, he looked at the girl, then started walking faster. It happened exactly what Jad had said: the little girl lifted on her tiptoes to lean a little bit more, her belly against the barrier, just when the man tripped in her legs, knocking her off balance.

Sebastian ran towards her, who was gasping for the shock of feeling the ground ripped out from under her feet. He grabbed her from her waist and pulled her back, making her fall on the floor.

"Are you okay?" the man said immediately, holding his hand out for her to grab it and stand up. She rubbed her achy backside, standing up by herself.

"Of course I'm not okay, you were about to push me over the barrier!" she exclaimed, drawing many people's attention, her mother included.

"Emily! Oh, my God, Emily what happened?" the blonde lady ran to hug her daughter.

"I'm sorry, I..." the man mumbled mortified. "The kid saved her." he said then, pointing at Sebastian, who blushed and started looking at everyone with an almost guilty face, then he turned to Jad, who was laughing at the opposite side of the gallery.

"Thank you, thank you!" Emily's mother screamed in joy, hugging him and leaving him even more embarrassed.

"She made me fall, anyway." the little girl said contemptuously, tossing her hair again.

Jad shook his head and kept chuckling. She'd never changed.

"Thank you for the picture." he said calmly, getting his phone back from Sebastian's father who'd just come out of the door. The couple looked around and noticed immediately the knot of people gathered around their son. "Sebastian!" they both called, concerned, running towards him.

"He saved her, he saved her..." Emily's mother repeated, while he walked towards the stairs. "Please, let me repay you for this..."

He didn't need to stay there to see what it would happen, he perfectly knew already. A blessing and a curse: life won't have ever surprised him, not in the good nor in the bad. Or at least, so he thought, until that day.

He'd spent so much time focusing on that event, analysing every detail, that he didn't think at all that something else could have happened. His phone rang again as soon as he walked out of the cathedral. "Are you saying it's going to be a girl?! Would you stop spoiling everything?" Iris' text said, making him laugh. He stopped for a minute, standing on the top of the steps of the church to type the answer, but at that point a familiar voice interrupted the flow of his thoughts.

"So, they've found each other."

As possible as it was, due to his dark skin, Jad paled. It was the first time since his mother's death that someone was able to surprise him. He raised his look from the phone. A girl with long, red hair and a white face sprinkled with freckles was staring at him from the bottom of the stairs with her big, green eyes. In a flash he saw again her messed hair disappearing behind the bars of the Conciergerie; that hurt, yes, those sudden flashes, as rare as they were, always hurt.

"Don't tell me you didn't see this coming!" she exclaimed, astonished, making fun of him. "Who do you think suggested Emily's mother to enter the church?"

How did you…?" he babbled, incredulous.

But she sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Come on, you can figure this out… I thought you were smarter than that." she taunted him.

"I've never thanked you properly. For that time at the prison."

She coughed an ironic cackle. "Why do you think I've come to talk to you? Let's go, I have to collect a debt from you." she nodded to him and started to walk in the other direction. He glimpsed a mischievous smile, right before she turned her back: as far as he knew about women, he'd seen that smile before and he knew what it meant.

He was still incredulous, after a moment of surprise, he walked down the steps and they walked together.

"Really, what kind of issue have you got with blondes? You can't stay away from them, can you? But your best friend's woman… You're just shameless."

"Do you have to remind me that?"

"They're calling her Tabatha, anyway."

"I know."

"Of course you do… You just asked her!"

"Stop reading me, if you don't want me to do the same with you."

"I'm shaking. Says the guy who didn't even know that today will turn out to be the best day of his life."

"Don't push it."

"Your words. We'll talk about it in three years."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
This is the end, guys! The end of the whole saga, I'm afraid, even if someone is pushing me to have other chapters about Louis haha but I don't think it's going to happen!

I would like to thank you all, everyone who has commented or read this story and the others: I wouldn't have written this last one if it wasn't for you! I hope you liked the "plot twist" in the end and the little Milady and Athos, and everything else! But if you are disappointed, you can tell me, no offence taken! I like to hear different opinions!

I apologise again for the many, many mistakes I've made. I know they're there somewhere, my English is not the best and I'm aware of it, I swear that in some points it sounds much better in Italian haha but I just wanted to give the chance to everyone to read it and appreciate (I hope) the plot, at least.

Thank you again everyone.

Love,

Anya


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